My Brightest Diamond has released five albums and played hundreds of shows, but each one is a novel experience. Two of their only constants: Shara Nova’s classically trained voice and her bent toward artsy surprise. In Nov. 2018, she released the My Brightest Diamond album A Million and One, a more electronic, dancey project than […]
One of Beyoncé’s biggest fans had her own homecoming last night. Lizzo, aka the former queen of Minneapolis hip-hop, returned to the Twin Cities for her first local headlining show in about two years. Like the rest of the shows on the Cuz I Love You tour, this Palace Theatre date sold out minutes after […]
After Willie Murphy passed away on Jan. 13, friends and fans hastened to post remembrances of the West Bank trailblazer online. Last weekend, Murphy’s community gathered to honor him in person: first on Saturday at an Augsburg Chapel memorial service, then on Sunday at “Fairytales,” a Cabooze tribute show and celebration of life. The Cabooze […]
It had been months since I saw a good thunderstorm. Sharon Van Etten put an end to that stretch last night at First Avenue. She summoned angry synths, crashing cymbals, and even windchimes and threw them into a shuddering cacophony. More impressive: She quieted the chaos at will. Van Etten has returned to the music […]
“I feel like everyone here has been cooped up inside,” Kacey Musgraves told the crowd at St. Paul’s Palace Theatre on Saturday night. After a week of polar vortex-induced blistering temperatures, the St. Paul audience seemed eager to be out of their homes and shoulder-to-sholder with thousands of strangers for the sold-out show. Georgia-based singer-songwriter […]
The Current enters adolescence this year, and part one of the celebration kicked off Friday night with a sold-out First Avenue show. “I got really strong when I was 14 carrying those heavy books,” quipped Kerry Alexander of Bad Bad Hats in a sweet deadpan, “and emotionally strong for other reasons.” The first night of The […]
I have a certain admiration for angry people. As a citizen and scholar of the United States, I’ve read about the provocative suffragettes; the can’t-be-tamed flag-wavers; the defiant revolutionaries. I’ve imagined myself joining their fights. But when I think about the issues threaded through present-day America, I feel numb and/or scared more often than roused. […]
“I like to celebrate [the 26th] every month, because I like to celebrate things,” Bailey “26” Cogan said from under a red cowboy hat at Icehouse last night. Yet this fifth-from-last day of Dec. 2018 was no ordinary 26th. Last night, 26 BATS! performed the final show of the Kremblems’ collective residency and dropped their […]
Last time I saw Kamasi Washington, he impressed me so thoroughly that I couldn’t decide whether or not to pick up tickets for his show at the Palace last night. If you look at it one way, Washington’s set at Rock the Garden was a superlative moment – a once-in-a-lifetime, bright-sunshiney storm of drums, horns, […]
For every bit of buzz Mitski has earned this year, she’s no new artist. Her 2018 release Be the Cowboy is her fifth album, following up her 2016 breakout Puberty 2. That said, it’s no small feat for any artist to sell out a whole tour, and that’s exactly what Mitski has done on her current […]
